Total No of Rhinos slaughtered in South Africa to Dec 31st 2017 = 1028. Official figures. Read my blog below for Headlines from around the World concerning the Global Catastrophe that is causing the biggest mass extinction since the Permian Period, and News of the fight to stop the slaughter of the Planet's Wildlife before it is too late.

Nature Explored

Monday, 31 March 2014

In a statement recently published on the official website of the
Republic of Botswana Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism the
country declares its position on the practice of canned hunting and its
plans to ban the practice. The statement reads as follows:
Botswana is opposed to “canned hunting” the practice in which large
carnivores such as lions or other wildlife species are raised in
captivity and hunted in small camps with no room for escape or to elude
the hunter. These animals are often raised in inhumane conditions in
close contact with humans.

The Government of Botswana is committed to conserving our
biodiversity, large carnivores included and does not tolerate cruelty to
our wildlife in any form. Efforts are underway to strengthen
legislation to ensure that this abhorrent and unethical practice does
not find its way into Botswana under any guise. Botswana will closely
scrutinize all requests to export wildlife to any destination.

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Chinese demand for the pangolin, a scale-covered anteater, is forcing
the endangered animals closer to extinction.
Pangolins are disappearing in China and across their ranges in East and
Southeast Asia. They have become the most frequently seized mammal in
Asia's illegal wildlife trade, as smugglers sell the creatures to meet
culinary and medicinal demand.

Traders are importing pangolins into China from as far away as
Africa, where four of the eight known species of the anteater live.

Pangolins have been a staple of traditional Chinese medicine for
thousands of years, but growing human populations and greater wealth
across China have increased demand. Pangolin fetuses, scales, and blood
are used in medicine, the meat is considered a delicacy, and stuffed
pangolins are sold as souvenirs.

The creatures are often kept alive without food or water while individual scales are pulled off them as required.

The decline in pangolin populations and intensified efforts to curb
the illegal trade have led to rising prices for pangolin products -
further enticing organized crime rings to smuggle the endangered
animals. A kilogram of pangolin scales that earned only 80 yuan (US$10)
in the early 1990s would now yield 1,200 yuan ($175) on the black
market, according to Zhang Yue, a wildlife trade expert in China's State
Forestry Administration.

An estimated 25,000-50,000 wild pangolins lived in China in 2000,
according to a national survey. Populations in Guangdong and Hunan
provinces have since dropped as low as 10 percent of the 2000 estimate,
and populations in Hainan, Henan, and Jiangsu provinces are likely
extinct.

Monday, 17 March 2014

The Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private foundation in the United
States, the Nature Conservation Trust, a South African public benefit
organization and South African National Parks announced an historic R255
million (US$23.7 million), three-year initiative to combat rhino
poaching in Kruger National Park and test anti-poaching tactics that can
be applied in other regions of Africa.

The effort in Kruger will create an Intensive Protection Zone (IPZ)
using sophisticated detection and tracking equipment and infrastructure
on the ground and in the air, elite canine units and highly-trained
ranger teams and improved intelligence gathering and observation and
surveillance systems.